Fired the newly completed BitX40 up on New Years Eve - I'd had zero luck on 7.285, but
it's probably because I'm a) in Central-South USA (Texas), and b) never the right timing.
So, I toddled on down to the busy, competitive area of 7.912 Mhz - bam! - I was able to return a CQ call
from El Paso (meh, yeah, it's only a mere, sickly 625 mi / 1022 km from my Dallas QTH), but immediately
after our brief QSO, a fellow from Knoxville, TN chimed in, and I was '58', with good audio.
Now, that's 772 mi / 1357 km from Dallas in the other direction!
However, I was using the 2nd battery, for 25 VDC at the PA. And the IRF510 DOES get hot!?
An old saying would be; "Hotter than a 2 dollar pistol" - not sure if that would translate well.
The IRF510 gets so hot, it'll drop out until it cools (at least, if it doesn't 'die').
I was able to quickly slide a PC Fan in front of it and the IRF510 recovered.
So, probably my final mod (outside of adding a battery monitor to the homebrew Arduino / DDS?
combo, will be a small, temperature-controlled fan, that is - I may have a small, 20mm or 30mm PC fan
handy in my 'scrap heap'.
I'm so enthused about this little rig. So many opportunities for add-ons.?
BTW, I have home-brewed my mic - since many PC microphones are simply little electret capsules, enclosed
in a cheap plastic case - I was able to add a PTT switch to the base of a cheap, Creative-Labs / Labtec,
desk-style, microphone. It works great, is light & portable.
Gosh, I need to put some photos up. This BitX40 really turned out nicely.
Mike Yancey, KM5Z
Dallas, Texas
